Weymouth, Abington and Rockland try to sort out SouthField

The agency overseeing development at SouthField and the project’s master developer are at odds over what sweeping changes proposed by the developer would mean for Weymouth, Abington and Rockland. Now officials in the three towns are attempting to determine who’s right.

The agency overseeing development of SouthField says changes proposed by the project’s master developer would saddle the three surrounding towns with debt and pad the developer’s bottom line.

Meanwhile, the developer, Starwood Land Ventures, maintains that the sweeping changes to reshape oversight and management of the project would bring in cash for Weymouth, Abington and Rockland and revive a project that it sees as essentially worthless.

Now officials in the three towns are trying to figure out who’s got it right.

“We heard both sides and now we’ve got to meet somewhere in the middle,” Rockland Selectmen Chairman Edward Kimball said after a 3½-hour meeting in which both sides made their cases Tuesday night. “Does it need to change? Absolutely. To what extent, that’s got to be decided by the three towns.”

During the meeting, held at Rockland High School, Starwood and South Shore Tri-Town Development Corp. gave dueling presentations on what is likely to happen if Starwood’s proposed changes to legislation passed in 2008 make it through the state Legislature. The meeting was the developer’s first formal presentation to all three communities at once.

Tri-Town Chief Financial Officer James Wilson disputed the developer’s assertion that the three communities would see windfalls because each would be allowed to tax properties in its section of the former South Weymouth Naval Air Station in exchange for providing public services.

Wilson said the changes would allow Starwood to cut its costs and save millions while putting the towns on the hook for the project’s debt and future Tri-Town budget deficits that could range upward of $2.5 million by budget year 2019.

Joseph Connolly, chairman of Tri-Town’s board of directors, said the 2008 legislation needs to change, but the board isn’t ready to back the developer’s proposal.

“The developer paints a rosy picture,” he said. “We paint a not-so-rosy picture, which is creating some doubts in people’s minds.”

But Robert Glantz, Starwood’s vice president of land, said the project is doomed to fail without the changes, which he said would help kick-start the long awaited commercial development at the site and bring a net financial benefit to the towns.

Starwood acquired the project’s previous master developer, LNR Property Corp., as part of a much larger $1.05 billion deal in April. At the time, Starwood’s analysis found the project had no financial value, largely because it has no long-term source of water or sewer capacity and limited access by road, Glantz said.

Starwood is proposing to take over from Tri-Town the responsibility for solving the water and wastewater problem as part of the changes.

Page 2 of 2 - The overhaul would also include slashing Tri-Town’s authority and reforming its board of directors.

Plans for SouthField include 2,855 homes and apartments and between 900,000 and 2 million square feet of commercial space. About 500 people live there now, but the commercial development has barely begun to materialize.

Starwood officials have said they don’t technically need approval from the three towns to pursue the changes in the Legislature. But until the towns get on board with Starwood’s proposal, the developer could have trouble winning support from lawmakers, state Rep. James Murphy, D-Weymouth, said.

“No legislator is going to go out on a limb and vote for something we weren’t asked to vote for,” he said. “If you want to be a partner, work with the communities.”